The (North) Korea Central News Service (KCNA) quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying the U.S. needed to prepare the environment for a new round of negotiations by "quickly restoring the basis for the six-party talks." It said North Korea in 1999 suspended missile tests, but dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang had been blocked since U.S. President George W. Bush assumed office.

The statement said North Korea was not now bound to stick to the moratorium on missile tests - a broad hint that it could restart tests if its demands are not met.

When the U.S. announced plans to ease economic sanctions on North Korea in 1999, Pyongyang declared a moratorium on missile tests. The reclusive country's leader Kim Jong-il told Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson in May 2001 he would suspend missile launches until 2003. North Korea reconfirmed the moratorium in Sept. 2002 and in the "Pyongyang Declaration" jointly issued with Japan in May 2004.

A South Korean official said the North Korean statement took the character of a demand to Washington to stop what Pyongyang calls its "hostile policies" toward it. Others say the statement aims to give the North leverage in negotiations.

But officials and North Korea experts say the Stalinist country is unlikely to take any additional steps in the short term. Doing so while South Korea and the U.S. are searching for ways of giving it reason to return to talks would only strengthen hardliners in the U.S. and Japan, they say.

U.S. State Department vice spokesman Adam Ereli told a regular briefing Thursday that North Korean threats to resume missile tests "do not help."

(Choi Byeong-muk, bmchoi@chosun.com )